2011/02/11

Paris avant/après before/after före/efter

Who hasn't dreamt about entering a time machine? Me myself sometimes wish I could travel back in time to see what Paris looked like before. I imagine it a little like Montmartre or Belleville today, but without cars or people talking into mobile phones.

You would just have to get back about 150 years, before the architecte Haussmann, on the orders of Napoleon the III, modernized the city : enlargened all the little alleys, cleared up around historical monuments and constructed all those beautiful buildings known in real estate ads as immeubles haussmanniens.
With flickr friend Karin (same first name, same year of birth, but she's American), I went to see a really interesting photo exhibition at the Academie d'Architecture, near place des Vosges in Paris, on that very subject. If you are as curious as we were, you can see all the before and after pictures here. The image that astonished us both the most, was the one of the park Buttes Chaumont, when it was still nothing but a huge city dump ! Believe me, when you walk out into the street again, you won't look at Paris in the same way… Until February 24

• I'm a Swedish photographer, living in Paris, where this year I am taking classes at the media school EMI-CFD in photojournalism. This blog is all about my passion for photography. Shows I love, my own projects and what's going on in various networks.